The New Beginning
by Weavleon
Summary: There are friends being hunted for extraterrestrial reasons, but why? Find out next time on DRAGON BALL Z!
1. Chapter 1: the new beginning

**Chapter One**

She stands in silence as the warm water runs over her body from the shower head. Today had put enough stress on her that she just needed to be quiet for a few moments, and there was no better place to do that than the shower, where she could lose herself. After half an hour, she finally left and wrapped herself up in a towel and headed to the room that Jamin had given them.

When she opened the door, she immediately looked for Hibiki, the boy who should have been there waiting. He said before she left that he'd stay there waiting for her to come back, so she wouldn't be shocked, or worse, came into the room without her towel. He was wrapped in a bubble of blankets on the bed-which is weird since she expected him to be on the couch that was there-and she could hear him breathing strangely. She frowns, concerned, and walks over to the side of the bed.

"Hibi? You okay?" she speaks and he jumps up from whatever he was doing. This worried her more. "What're you doing?"

" _Um_ ," He answers, still shocked. "Uh I uh, I was just making my bed!"

She tilts her head to the side, wondering why he was lying to her. She looks away from him to the bed for a second, and noticed his skinny jeans and underwear on the other side. She blinks a couple times and smiles, now understanding what was happening.

She takes the cover and slowly pulls it from him. Just as she did, he covers himself.

"Uh, nothing to see here!" This didn't stop her from trying to uncover her target from the sheets that were draped over it. "I'm sorry, I thought I'd have enough time before you got back." he starts to explain.

"Yeah, and how'd that work out for ya?" she teases him, sitting on the bed next to him. "Relax, it's fine."

"You ok?" he asks, looking at her, sitting up, still covering himself. She looks down at him and her smile fades a little, but he noticed.

"No, but I'll be alright."

"You better be."

"I will be." She looks at his hands a second before reaching and holding one of them. He tenses up. "You alright?"

"Yea, I'm ok." he answers, and she could tell he wasn't expecting that. She pulls both of his hands away. She looks back to him, and listens to hear as far as she could out of the room she's in to hear where the others in the house are. He starts to say something else but she kisses him softly.

After a thirty seconds of them kissing each other, she stops and catches her breath, him doing the same, and she closes her eyes. "Later?" she whispers.

"If you want." he answers, and she turns away, at the same time covering him with the blanket again, and toward the door, just as Solomon, Hikari's newly discovered younger brother, opens the door loudly.

"Guys!" he starts, not paying attention to them. "Jamin wants us all downstairs!"

And he left, just like that, leaving the door wide open. Looking back at Hibiki, she could feel herself blushing, and could see that he was as well.

"I guess we better go..."

* * *

There's a certain silence as they walk down the stairs towards the room that Jamin invited them to.

After a few minutes Jamin finally starts up again on more bad news. "There's more I need to tell you about your birth parents Hikari... You too Solo." Turning his head to look at the child he raised

"Yeah, I figured as much" Hikari replied weakly "Hibi, why don't you go to the bathroom and wash up? I'll be fine for now." He looks at her in the eyes and then starts walking in the direction of the restroom to give the others privacy.

"I'm sorry Hikari, it should've been me. I was entrusted by your parents to watch over you and Solo, but I had to give you away to others so that they couldn't get the both of you," Jamin starts as soon as he leaves. "I tried my best to watch over you from a distance, but if I were to house you both it'd be a risk to all of the people we know, and it was a risk I wasn't willing to take then. The people who died today were casualties in a search for you, and I should've died protecting you."

"Jamin... stop it," Hikari tells him, stopping whatever he was about to continue saying. "I'm not... mad about my parents... It's too late. They're dead, and now we know that they've found us. I can get over their deaths in time."

"They were an unnecessary sacrifice."

"That isn't your fault. None of us knew. Now we do... I'm more upset with the fact that you never told us we were related," she explains. "You had both of our entire lives to tell us, and you didn't."

"Yep." Solo speaks up after being in complete silence the entire time. "That was kinda fucked up dude."

"Death can be gotten over... it has to be, we're being hunted. To think there will be no casualties is stupid. But we can't have stupid secrets like this, Jamin. You know that."

"Yes I know, I'm sorry." They stand in silence for a few minutes until they hear a crash and the sound of objects falling from in the bathroom. "The fuck?"

"Jamin! There's something wrong with the soap!" Hibiki yells from the bathroom after a second.

"Oh my god, Hibi, _what did you do?!_ " Hikari yells back, then looks at Jamin for permission to go. He gestures in the direction of the bathroom, laughing, and she takes off, jogging up to where Hibi was. He looks at Solo, who was already walking after her.

"What?" He asks his guardian, knowing he was looking after him, and disappears to where she had gone as well. A second later, both of their laughter filled the house at what they saw, which made Jamin smile.

 _Enjoy yourselves now, you three_. Jamin thinks, his smile faltering after a few seconds. _I get the feeling not everything is going to be as nice as they have been in the past._

When the three of them come back, Solo and Hikari are covered in water and bubbles, still laughing quietly, while Hibiki is pouting, but is still holding Hikari's hand.

"The hell happened to you two?" Jamin asks, smiling again. Hikari stops laughing, but is still smiling.

"Hibi didn't like that we were laughing," she explains, just to start laughing again, meanwhile Solo was just trying to catch his breath.

Jamin tries his best to fake a chuckle before ruining the other's fun. "Hikari why don't you and Jordan go back upstairs to your room and get dried off again and dressed in some clean clothes?" The two then comply and walk back up the stairs they came down originally to their room.

Solo then started to whistle to himself absent mindedly. "You too dumbass." Jamin says harshly. The goof then proceeds to skip into his room like an idiot.

Hibiki and Hikari start getting dressed once they reach their room again. Hibiki adorns his usual iconic outfit of black skinny jeans, a black V-neck T-shirt, and a unzipped hoodie (though he'd much rather be shirtless), all while occasionally taking peeks at his girlfriend's body as she changes. She is wearing a similar outfit consisting of a plain blue T-shirt, a black sweater, a black pair of tight jeans that hug the shape of her legs, and her _Wolfy_ hat she always has to on.

The two finish preparing and all they have left to do before heading out is to put on their shoes. "So... When is 'later' exactly?" Hibiki asks.

"Are you really worried about that right now with all that's going on?" Hikari remarks. "Geez, I was just asking." he states defensively.

"Yeah yeah, just hurry up. We need to get going, and we don't want to keep Jamin waiting too long." Hikari says already halfway out the door.

The couple soon walk down the stairs together and are greeted by Jamin who is now decked out in battle armor consisting of a long plated coat, a large bulky pair of gauntlets as well as matching boots, and an uncomfortable looking pair of pants that appeared to be made out of some form of latex.

"Well aren't you two cute with your matching emo outfits."

Hibiki stares in awe at the ethereal warrior staring before him.

"WOAH! That's fucking cool! I want armor! How come I don't have any?!"

Jamin then rolls his eyes signaling that its not as great as it may seem.

"Yeah, how did you even get dressed in all of so fast?" Hikari ask.

"Ghost ways." He replies "I'm glad you both got ready so fast, but now, what the hell is taking Solo so long?"

Almost as if he was waiting for his que Solomon walks back into the room wearing the same thing he was originally and is just as dripping wet.

"Solo, what the fuck?" The other three say in unison, Hikari face palming, and Jamin rolling his eyes again as they say it.

"Whatever, it'll have to work for now." Jamin says in annoyance. "We need to go now otherwise they could have a higher chance of finding us."

Hikari is obviously getting more stressed as this all goes on "Well where even are we going?" She asks in a worried fashion.

"I'm not sure of the final destination. But that's why we are heading to someone who can tell us of a safe place to keep you two while you lay low." He replies while throwing a spare towel at Solo for the road. "And sad as it may be, I can't even promise you kids that you'll be a hundred percent safe where you're going to be residing."

Hibiki has his own opinions on what Jamin has been saying, but finally speaks up once he sees his girlfriend losing herself in her overcomplicated thoughts and emotions, like she often does. "Okay listen here, I get what you're trying to do with Solo and Hikari but I don't think you realize something. I'm staying with Her."

"Jordan that's not an option. You're coming with us and getting dropped off along the way."

"I'm not going to let that happen Jamin! There's nothing you can say nor do that will make me change my mind! I'm staying by her side, I'm going to see her through this, and I'm going to be with her when it's all over! If you don't like that than you'll have to stop me yourself. Because I'm-"

Hibiki is cut off when Hikari takes and hugs his arm while holding herself close to his side. "Hibi stop." She stares at the ground, seeming almost lifeless. "... It'll be okay."

After a swift few moments of silence Jamin separates the two when he walks between them, grabs a bag, and heads out the door "we'll talk about this later, we need to go immediately." He then opens a ghost portal and walked through it. Solo then follows behind him, drying off with his new towel. Though it's not doing much for his level of moisture.

Just as the young couple step out the door Hibiki takes his freighted girlfriend's hand in his and looks at her in the eyes. "Don't worry, no matter what happens from here I'll always be there for you. Things won't end as badly as it may seem, I have faith."

Hikari then holds his hand tighter, It's colder than usual. He's scared, that was one of his signs she's learned to pick up on over the three years they've been together. "I have faith too. And I know you'll be here for me, now and forever."

The two then start walking faster, fingers intertwined, footsteps in sync "I promise I'll be there for you... I'll never let anything happen to you." Hibiki whispers quietly trying to hide it from Hikari. Unfortunately he was never good at whispering and she heard every word he said.

"I know, I'm counting on it." Hikari whispers back. Though it seemed like Hibiki either didn't hear her, or was just trying to focus on walking and not tripping like he normally did in other touching moments.

"Are we there yet?" Solo asked.

"Yes actually." Jamin replies.

"Oh shit, really?!" Solo exclaims.

"YAAAY!" Hikari shouts.

Hibiki stops and stares at the home in front of the group "You're still planning on dropping me off, aren't you?" The house was his.

"Yes, I am." Jamin responds walking towards the door, and opening it. "Hey Kalu, we're coming in."

Solo, Hibiki, and Hikari soon follow behind their impatient leader into Kalu's suburban home.

"Oh shit, Kalu?! The fuck are we at this lil' bitch's place for?!" Solo yells playfully.

The home is nothing more than you would think a normal middle aged male in America would own: Kinda small, two floors, a tiny yard that hasn't been mowed in a month due to procrastination and pure laziness, all placed in the middle of a cul-de-sac residing in the suburbs just outside the city. The inside isn't anything to marvel at either. It's dirty, trash strewn randomly around the floor, and it's reasonable to assume it hasn't been vacuumed in a while, much like the lawn.

"Oh damn, hey guys." Kalu says in response to the people entering his home.

He looks past Jamin and Solo to see the young couple standing in the doorway, as they had entered much later than the other two. He looks at the two with piercing eyes. Hibiki is comforting Hikari in his arms. His father doesn't approve of him dating Hikari, regardless of what Kalu thinks though he continues to love, cherish, and comfort his girlfriend. It would take a lot more than just a stern parent to separate him from the most important thing in his life. Kalu doesn't say anything about it this time though. Perhaps he could tell that something was wrong and didn't want to make matters worse.

"I wish we could sit here and chat, but I'm afraid we have to cut the greetings short." Jamin states.

Kalu changes focus to the worried young man. "Yeah, what's going on? Why are you all so rushed?"

"I wish I could tell you right now, but I'd prefer to talk to you privately first."

"I understand, we can go upstairs and talk about it in the bedroom." Kalu then looks over in the direction of the children, but mainly Hibiki. "Why don't you three stay down here and wait for us to be finished, then we'll come back down and discuss everything with you afterwards."

The party splits up temporarily with Jamin and Kalu working their way up the stairs to the room that will service their private conference. The trio head towards the living room, Hibiki and Hikari sit next to each other on the couch and put their arms around one another.

"Oh shit, a leany back chair!" Solo exclaims soon seeing the recliner.

"The fuck? You mean a recli-" Hibiki is cut off by him jumping into the chair which legs break immediately upon impact. Both it and Solo quickly fall to the floor with a loud thud.

"Oh wow. Smooth move Ex-Lax." Hibiki quips. Hikari simply facepalms and judges silently.

Upstairs the two adults hear the crash and are forced to end their conversation out of worry and curiosity as to what happened. As Jamin runs his way through a wall, and Kalu sprints down the stairs another loud crash can be heard. This time it wasn't Solomon's antics that caused it.

Kalu has fallen down the stairs and can't get himself back up. Jamin can't move or even yell out in anger, paralyzed by the scene laid out before him: A hole blown through the wall, Solo setting fire to everything, Hikari huddled over Hibiki's body and rambling like crazy, with tears streaming down her face. He's impaled, unconscious, bleeding profusely.

"Oh God, Jordan... I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I'll kill them... I'll kill them all... I'll wipe every last one of them off the face of this earth..."


	2. Chapter 2: The search

**Chapter 2:**

Scorching hot sun, sears the skin of the now trio: Jamin, Hikari, and Solomon. Jamin is especially tired, due to fact that Hikari has been forcing and threatening him to carry Hibiki's cold lifeless body.

"Jaamiiin! How much longer?! I'm really tired!" Hikari whines.

"Stop complaining, there's only a little longer" Jamin replies dryly.

"Buut Jaamiiinn! I'm hungryyyy! I wanna be there noowww!" Hikari continues.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I was the one wasting energy carrying a lifeless body. Not you." Jamin remarks.

"Oh I'm sorry, I thought I was the one who froze a state, and prolly killed three people by mistake less than an hour ago," she snaps back glaring at him. "Solo's over there dying and he _literally_ did nothing but walk. What's your point?" She points to her brother who was crawling behind them in need of water.

Jamin rolls his eyes and drops Hibiki's body with a hard thud. "Fine, if that's how you're gonna act then you can be the one to carry your boyfriend's corpse." The second the body hits the ground, she freezes Jamin's face to be fixed in the way it was and growls. Meanwhile, Solomon crawls up to Hibiki and pokes the corpse.

"There's water in a human body, right?" He asks, looking up to his sister and guardian, and successfully stopping them from fighting to focus on him.

"I swear, I will freeze both of you and leave you here to die." Hikari threatens.

"Wait wait wait wait, hold the fuck up. I got fire, so how the hell would you even do that to me?" Solo questions.

Hikari grabs Solomon by the neck and pulls his pathetic body off the ground. "I WILL find a way." She then let's go and drops him.

Solo then goes back to crawling on the ground, and then proceeds to dig and burrow his way down into the sand like a prairie dog.

Hikari tilts her head in confusion "Hoooooow?"

Solomon pokes his head up and out of the desert sand "It's a fanfic, anything can happen."

"Nigga, stop breaking the fuckin fourth wall!"

"Oh shit, you right." He pops his head back under the ground.

Solo jumps back up out of the sand and grabs Hibiki's body with his jaws and drags him under to the subterranean tunnel system with him. Jamin jumps into the tunnel after Solo, with his face still frozen from Hikari, knowing that she and Kalu would never let him live it down if he allowed Solomon to feast on Hibiki's body for water.

Instead of helping Jamin, Hikari just watched them fight over her other. "You know what? I'm kinda thirsty too... wait, what am I saying?!"

"Female! Stop conversing with yourself and help me get your brother!" Jamin called back to her.

"I mean it's not like he can do anything! He'll understand! It was for life support!" Solo interjects, still pulling on Hibiki's body.

Solo manages to take the body away for a brief moment, and holds him on his lap like a ventriloquist "Ugh, I hate my life. I'm so dark and edgy, just go ahead and eat me and end it already." He says controlling Hibiki, doing his best impression of his potential meal.

"SEE!? He's down!" Solo exclaims.

Hikari starts giggling before it becomes a full-blown laugh attack. "Wait, why am I laughing? That's not funny! I shouldn't be laughing at that!" she says suddenly after immediately ceasing her laughter.

Jamin just looks at the two in disappointment "Damn, you two really do need that water, because you're becoming more delusional than usual."

"Yeah..." Hikari says drifting off in a sad tone, before the two look back over to Solomon and see a very interesting sight.

He has a long dining table set up with chairs lining it, and plates at every seat. There is also a long thick tablecloth covering the length of the table. Solo is sitting in the main seat, it's at the middle, and it's the largest of the at least 20 seats. In front of him on the gigantic table, resting on a shining silver platter is Hibiki's body. The body has been seasoned with various spices, and marinated in hot sauce and lemon juice, all while laying in a provocative pose with an apple in his mouth. "Precisely why I have been insisting on having a meal to refresh us. Now, who would like to join?" He says in a fake sophisticated tone while sharpening two carving knives, and setting up forks that he probably won't use.

"The fuck?!" Both she and Jamin exclaim, and she walks over to the table just to pull the Apple from Hibiki's mouth, and begin to eat it. She then turns around and lifts up her hand. After a second, his body jerks slightly and lifts up from the table.

"Alrighty, time to go." she yawns, walking in the direction they'd been going, and the body floating behind her. Jamin glares at her, then pulls and drags Solo with them, leaving the random table behind.

"Bitch, why didn't you tell us you could do that instead of having me carry him?!" He rants.

"Because you're both idiots for not figuring it out on your own. He's frozen, dumbass," she rolls her eyes and takes another bite from the apple. "Plus I was hungry."

"But that was my apple!" Solo yells up while being dragged.

"And it is delicious. Thanks bro," Hikari responds.

* * *

Now in Egypt the group arrive at a bazaar to get supplies, and food and water, this time not from a body.

Jamin starts listing the supplies that they need to get. "Okay, so we need a sizable amount of food, water, extra clothes would be nice, maybe-"

"You do realize that we don't have any pounds, right?" Hikari says cutting off Jamin.

"We don't even have any American money." Solo interjects. Hikari randomly pulls a dollar out of Hibiki's pocket.

"I mean I found a dollar." She sticks the dollar in her own pocket. "But that doesn't help either. We need a distraction."

"Why?" Asked Jamin. And the siblings stare at him waiting. He caught on after a second. "Right, stealing, of course."

"It's for the charity of us not starving!" Solo chants in defense of the plan.

"Yea... oh, I know! We could start a fire!" Hikari yells out.

Solo nonchalantly throws a fire ball over his shoulder and lights an entire line of merchant shops ablaze. "There, I got you covered."

"Goddammit Solo, it was a joke!" Hikari yells "You do this shit every time! This is why we cannot have nice things!"

Citizens of the city start running and screaming as the fire spreads at an uncontrollable level.

Guards spot Solomon and start chasing him down. He immediately turns around, picks up the limp body of Hibiki, and runs as fast as he can away from the guards. "Take my advice, you better run! I've been in this type of scenario too many times, and I ain't getting caught again!"

Jamin and Hikari take quick glances at each other and bolt after him.

Solo, in the midst of running and not paying attention, collides into another person running. Hibiki's body falls to the ground, as well as something else. The person Solo ran into is wearing a hooded sleeveless shirt made of leather, and a pair of worn out pants.

"Dammit! Where is it?! I can't find it!" The mystery person yells.

The guards surround the two and point their weapons at them, and then yell.

"Riffraff!"

"Street rat!"

"Scoundrel!"

"Take that!"

Solo picks up a random roll of bread off the ground that was left behind from the burning rubble of the merchant shops. "Just a little snack guyzzz!"

The stranger stands up, and puts two fingers to his forehead in concentration. After a few seconds of silence, the guards all turn away without a word, which stopped Solomon from being a dingus any further. "Sorry for them," he apologizes to the three of his new acquaintances, shaking his head. "They just don't know when to quit."

The group wear a collective look of confusion on their faces, as the strange man chuckles to himself. Then his attitude flips a total 180, and he grabs solo by the collar of his hoodie and raises him with no effort at all. "Where is it!? You made me lose it!" he says furiously. He then pulls a kunai out of a small holster he had wrapped around his ankle, and his face grows into a even more livid expression "Either you're going to find it, or end up lifeless like your pal over there." He points with the kunai to the direction that Hibiki's body was, but somehow it wasn't there.

Hikari pops up beside the stranger randomly and grips his arm tightly. "Let him go, or I will turn you into a popsicle." They have a small stare off, but he rolls his eyes and releases him. "Solo, find the thing."

"Why do I gotta do it?!" Her brother complains, brushing off his hoodie.

" _Just do it dammit!_ " she exclaims, not looking away from the guy who held him. He starts looking around after that, and she releases the stranger's arm. Before he could say anything to her, she turns away, looking in the direction of where she was with Jamin. While the guards were around, Hibiki had woken up, so Jamin had dragged him from the central commotion between solo and the stranger in the hoodie. He was sitting up now, rubbing his eyes. She quickly walks over and sits by him.

Hibiki smells the air and licks his arm. "Mmm, hotsauce... Wait! Hotsauce! Solo, did you try and eat me again!?"

Out of nowhere, sprinting through the flames that have taken over the city comes Eboni. "I KNEW IT! I KNEW HE WASN'T DEAD! AND YOU TWO!" She stands next to Hibiki and Hikari, towering over them. "You lied to me..."

"Eboni, what are you doing in our fanfic?" Hikari asks with a blank expression.

"Oh Shit, you right. I'm not supposed to be in here yet." Eboni slowly fades out of existence

"Well this has been an interesting situation so far" Hibiki says "I'm just scared to think of what I missed."

"You haven't missed much," Jamin tells him. "We got here, one of them destroyed a city and got chased by the cops. Ran into this random guy that threatened Solo for losing a thing. So pretty much a regular Tuesday."

Now jumping out of the burning hellscape around them, another female comes, landing on Solo's back as he is hunching over to find the missing item. She would be a beautiful sight if her face wasn't plastered with a look that was more terrifying than the flame and brimstone encompassing the area.

"Jesus, what now?" Solo says with the woman still standing on his back.

"QUIET!" she orders stomping on his back before stepping off of him.

He gives off a small moan at the feeling of being stomped on by the lady, who was wearing large boots.

The hooded man runs over as swiftly as possible and crouches on a single knee, before taking the lady's hand. "My word! It is truly a gift that I have the pleasure of laying my eyes upon you, let alone the ability to speak to you. And I am a gift giver as well, for I am bestowing to you the present of meeting I. A man who can bring all that you could ever ask for and more, a man who can do anything you ask of me, a man who can make you feel things you've never felt before. I milady, and yours. I am Can, but you miss..." He struggles to read the name tag that is hooked to the lab coat she is wearing. "You miss Mesta, can call me whatever you want. And that is a truly angelic name if I must say." And to finish it all off he kisses her hand, and gives her a wink.

Unexpectedly a can of diet soda falls from the sky and hits his head. A larger than usual owl flies down and sits next to Can, who is lying on the ground in pain from the hit to his head.

"Fuck! Ouch! Owlschwitz, you damn cockblock, you couldn't have waited 5 minutes to deliver the soda to me!?" The owl tilts it's head. "What do you mean she wouldn't have wanted me?! You don't know that... And did you really need to get a metal can?"

"OWLSCHWITZ!?" Hibiki yells. "That's fucking racist."

Mesta places her foot on Can's neck, pushing slightly down on it. "You are the one who stole the Heovyne. Do you have any idea what you have done?"

Can gulps loudly. He makes the same finger movement as before, but after a few moments nothing happens. He is confused, starting to sweat and worry.

"Return to me the metal that you stole and I might consider not snapping your neck, like the rat you are." Mesta threatens.

"I-I, uh.I mean, I can't do that at the moment. You see, he is actually the one who possesses the precious metal you are talking about." He gestures over to Solo with a shaking hand.

Mesta and the others look towards the direction that Can pointed at, but to see a completely different sight than what they expected.

A much more disturbing sight.

Solomon is pinned to the ground by a ornate spear that was stabbed through his mouth, as well as several other small ones jabbing through his body. Without a doubt he his dead, or at least will be. There is no recovering from those injuries. Standing above Solomon's blood spattered body is the murderer.

But almost as soon as the group turn their heads to look where Can pointed there is a blinding light and a deafening screech. By the time it fades the culprit was already gone. Nobody got a good look at them. There was no way to. Whoever murdered their friend was experienced. They stabbed in all of the vital organs perfectly, they had a diversion planned, and they knew that they could sneak up and kill Solo without a sound and before the others could've looked and realized what happened.

"No..." Jamin says quietly to himslef "I couldn't protect him."

Hikari is simply frozen. Stuck from confusion, and sadness. Anger and guilt.

Hibiki gets up and slowly walks over to his bestfriend's body, experiencing the same feeling Solo felt with him. He didn't even know what was happening before, and now this.

Just as he approached the body it bursts into flames.

Mesta pulls Hibiki away from the fire. "Watch out..."

In a few minutes the body is nothing but ashes.

The gang can do nothing more than simply sit in silence.

After several minutes of mourning Jamin grabs Hikari by the arm and starts walking. "C'mon, let's get going." He says.

"What? Are you fucking kidding me?!" Hikari asks yelling.

Jamin whips around with aggression. "I've failed too many times, and I'm NOT going to lose you too!" He says, barely restraining from yelling in her face.

Suddenly the ashes reignite again, even though there is nothing left to burn or fuel the flames. But the fire keeps rising and rising. Getting brighter and more vibrant. These flames are more yellow than regular fire, almost golden. The other five can't help but stare in confusion and amazement. It's almost unbearable to be so close to the raging fire, even from several feet away.

The gleaming blazes pick up even more raising several feet and widening as well. They keep growing and burning. Brighter, hotter, growing, all until it bursts in a small explosion of red and purple.

Miraculously in front of them stood Solomon once more right where the ashes laid... Two of him

The two Solos stood there as if the impossible didn't just happen. They stared at one another in disgust.

One Solomon decided he had enough and jumped, launched a fire ball and started running. The other Solo dodged the attack and ran in the opposite direction.

"Wait, Solo, no!" Hikari says chasing one of them.

"Get back here!" Hibiki yells running after the other.

Jamin tried to stop them both, but is unsuccessful. Not knowing what to do he just sat down to try and take a moment to gather his thoughts.

Mesta was mesmerized by what had just happened, but not in the same way as the others. She was fascinated by it all, and in great detail wrote down everything that just played out before her eyes I'm a small notepad.

The only ones not present were Can and his owl compantion, who must've taken the opportunity to flee sometime during all of the commotion.

After following the trails of the two Solomon, Hikari and Hibiki lose them, and to make things even worse, get lost.

On Hibiki's end things are quite. He sits worrying and thinking. _Where is Jess? What just happened? Is this real? And what about what went down at the house before it went dark?_ Everything is running through his head, and there are no answers to be found.

On the other side of things Hikari is alone, and isn't well. Her head is pounding, she feels sick, yet she can't throw up because she never had anything to eat in the first place. She does need food though, and more importantly water. She is sweating it all out in what she assumes to be the worst timed hot flash ever. Unable to handle it all, she does the only thing she can and screams for her boyfriend to help. " **JORDAN!"**

Her plea for help is the last thing she does before she faints, falling onto her back and hoping Hibiki, or anyone else will come to help her. Otherwise, she could be stuck, and having nothing left but time before it runs out for her.


	3. Chapter 3: The assention

p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"strongChapter 3/strong/p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"emHibiki Pov/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"em"JORDAN!"/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I hear Jess scream scream my name. I get up as fast as I possibly can, and start sprinting in the direction the voice came from./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;""Hime!" I yell, without a reply or reponse./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I can't believe this is happening. I don't even understand any of what's going on. First the shit that just happened with Solomon, and now I'm scared to death about Jess. And if anything happens to her, and I can't help or protect her because I'm already out of breath from trying to chase down a Solo doppelganger, I'll make him pay for it./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;""JESSICA!" I yell even louder, forcing what little air I have out of my lungs to try and reach her. I pick up my speed, sprinting faster and kicking up more of the hot desert sand with each step. She wasn't answering, which just made me run faster./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"emPlease be ok, please be ok./em I think as I sprint. It's bad enough Solomon disappeared, now this. It's weird how when I was little all I wanted were powers like theirs. I had no idea this is all normal for them./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;""Fuck! I bet if I really did have powers of my own I'd be able to find Jess by now!" I yell in anger at myself. I can barely see through all of the sand blowing in the air, and keeping it out of my mouth is nearly impossible. All I can see is just grains of sand rushing toward me as the wind keeps picking up. My legs won't stop burning as they work harder to push against the wind and keep up my momentum./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"More sand heads straight toward me, as if the wind changed direction just to stand in my way. Looking through the sandstorm I can see something large jutting at me. Then two more appear from the sand. Before I can even react or get out of the way, they hit me and knock me back at least 135 feet./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I force myself to get up, and miraculously I'm unscathed. Not even a scratch on my body, though my shirt is ripped and ruined. Still trying to get a hold on things I attempt to move forward, and take a step. The wind, acting as my enemy, pushes against me even harder, but fails at forcing me down again. em"/ememThe hell is going on?" /emI ask myself. em"It was crystal clear a few minutes ago."/em/p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Another shape appeared amidst the whirling sand. I'm not sure what to do now. Do I dodge? Run away? But if I waste any more time on this shit and it might be too late for Jess. So I keep trekking in the direction I was going, defying my original instinct. More resistance from the wind as I continue on, and it gets increasingly harder to lift my legs to run./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"But I can't keep this up, my can't keep walking. My legs are giving up on me. My feet are aching more with every step. So I eventually stop, unable to go on despite my will to continue./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"And Jess... I let her down. She called out to me and I couldn't get to her. I couldn't save her. Now we're both doomed. Here I will lie, buried in a coffin of sand. "I'm a failure." I say to myself, like I had hundreds of times before./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"As I stand there, waiting for my retribution, and sulking over my disaster, the figure I saw before loomed from the raging storm. As it approached it became more identifiable. I could hardly make out the shape, peering past the sand. It was humanoid./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Somehow someone stood there, in the middle of a sandstorm, watching me struggle. And this person was now simply walking toward me with ease./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I try to pick up my feet again and walk toward them, but they won't budge, and not from exaughtion. They're trapped in the sand, like it's grabbing me and anchoring me to the ground. As I struggle to free my feet, the mysterious person walks closer to me. And with each step that they take a feeling inside of me saying that I'm in danger grows./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Walking from the whipping sand stream is the curious figure. Now standing before me at my height, a person that I feel I don't want to be around. They are sporting a surprisingly light looking suit of armor, a small shield on their forearm, and a helm covering all but their mouth that has a cape attached to it at the collar./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"The armored marauder raises their arm towards me with an open hand, and the sandstorm stops. The grains of stand hover in the air, but the ones that have my feet trapped are as tight as ever. This person, or thing, has to be the reason behind all this./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Staring blankly is just about the only thing I can do in this situation, and it isn't getting me anywhere. I need to go at this from a different approach, because obviously just trying to break the vice on my feet isn't going to work, and neither is gawking at this knight./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I watch the sand suspended in air, but something is off about it... This obviously isn't sand if he's controlling it like this. And besides, it doesn't look like it's sand. Sand isn't all the same color, nor all the same shape./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"The person rotates their hand, so their palm is now facing upwards, and the "sand" moves in sync with his movements. The grains start to rotate, and change color from a clear glassy color, to dark and solid shade. Almost like small sharp flakes of obsidian./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"The strange man starts to ever so slowly close his fist, and the black specks move in sync with it again. They are circling me slowly, but speeding up. Getting faster. And faster... And faster still/p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I guess after they had enough fun toying with me they stopped closing their hand, before clenching it full force in one quick motion./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"The shards bolt to the area behind me at a blinding speed, lashing at my skin and gashing it open as they go by. They then lunge forward and stab a hole in my chest, flowing through and widening it. All I can recollect in this moment is pain. Excruciating pain at won't end./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Everything is just black./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Empty and hollow, just like my torso now./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I fall forwards and collapse, my feet still trapped. I would scream in pain, or for help, but I can't. I really am destined to die here, failing even Jessica./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"But I shouldn't even be alive now, and for all that they know, I am dead. So maybe if I'm lucky I can just hold on and try and make it out of here when they leave, like they did with Solomon./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Everything is fuzzy, but at least I can make out shapes and colors if I strain my eyes to see. And I can understand the sound of the my mystery assailant taking steps, though not clearly at all. But that shows I can regain some semblance of consciousness, which is good. So I just need to close my eyes, listen closely, save my energy, and wait./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"But as I shut my eyelids I hear the sound of something. A loud crash, and something that is similar to the muffled footsteps from just a moment ago, but lighter./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I take a risk and crack open a single eye once more. I can make out a short dark skinned person standing in front of the knight. They are accompanied by something white and very large, maybe around the size of a Clydesdale horse, it's hard to figure out in my current condition./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;""Oh god, no... Kiwi, why would you bring Jessica to this place?..."/p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"Jessica and the knight start conversing for some reason, and she obviously isn't happy. And as Jess is yelling her spirit guardian starts walking over to me and puts me on his back./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"After several seconds of Kiwi walking away from the conflict, and the other two having an argument that I can't hear, the knight rise their hand again, like they did with me. The particles start swarming and swirling around their arm, until stopping and forming something in his hand./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"After his tool is done, my body has a sickened feeling, and I get struck with an abrupt return of my senses. Now I can make out what's going on with the argument, and I don't like it. The object they made isn't a tool. It's a sword. A dark and reflective, crystalline sword with a solid flat base with small sharp blades jutting out from the sides./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I leap off Kiwi as fast as I can as the knight commences to bring down is blade on Jessica. The world slows down around me, but I'm still moving faster than ever. Jessica's eyes widen with a terrified expression as the sword inches closer toward her, and I can see her legs slowly struggling to move so she can dodge his strike. But they are trapped, just as mine were before this same villain attacked me./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"I pick up even more speed as the world continues to move in slow-motion. emDo what you want, to me but hurting my girlfriend is the worse decision this bastard has ever made/em. I'm being overcome with all these different demented emotions, most notably anger. My consciousness is simply blank, all except for these flooding ideas of stopping this person that I'm focused on./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"When my mind is back in sync with my body and all is clear, I can feel this refreshed feeling. A release of anger and evil. I release my jaw that was apparently clenched and open my eyes that I must've closed./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"As my eyes spread open I see a field of red covering everything, including Jessica whom is standing just feet in front of me. She has a shocked and scared expression on her face./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"And then I look down./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"On the ground is the knight on their knees. With my arms transmuted into two pointed gray metal blades, piercing their black armor, and protruding from their back through their chest, coated in crimson blood. And the cavity in my torso is healed without so much as a scar./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;"The knight turns their head to face me and raises the corners of their mouth to make an eerie grin, and opens their mouth to speak, but only deep chuckle comes out as blood waterfalls out of their mouth./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;""This'll be interesting..." They muster the strength to say forebodingly in a deep quiet voice, before leaning forward and starting to slide off my sword arms slowly. Once they finally free themselves from being impaled they land on the ground with a hard thud, and slowly start fading away./p  
p style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium;" /p 


	4. Chapter 4: The Plan

Chapter 4

"... W-what the fuck?..." Hikari murmurs mortified at the scene that had just played out in front of her.

She backs away slowly from Hibiki, and looks at him, then herself, and then takes in the landscape around them. All of it soaked with the knight's blood.

Both of Hibiki's arms are altered into the form of dual swords. Just moments ago the Knight had been impaled on those weapons, but managed to slide off, and vanish. Which left Hikari even more terrified, if that was even possible.

But now all that is left before her is her boyfriend, and simply stares as his limbs return to their natural state, and he tries to wipe off the blood left behind from his assault to protect her.

Hibiki tears off the little bit of remaining shirt dangling from his body, and slowly wipes the blood off his left arm and hand, and his already apparent look of disbelief and fear only further grows. Meanwhile Hikari hasn't the slightest clue of what he is gawking at. She is too preoccupied trying to cope from that gruesome sight.

Hibiki's expression of pure anger and evil as his arms change and puncture the knight's body. The explosion of blood bursting out towards her. The sight of the armor the knight wore cracking and breaking, and their flesh tearing, exposing the muscle and meat as the blades slide through.

Hikari finally takes a step toward Hibiki and pretends that she is okay. "Hibi, are you alright?..." She asks quietly, putting a hand on his wiped arm.

"What is this?" Hibiki asks openly "What's wrong with me?!" His arms may have returned to their natural state, but they still kept the metal attribute and wouldn't go back. His arms, all the way up to his shoulders, were just a dark reflect grey, and despite the hot desert sun, remained cold to the touch.

Hibiki was broken and confused, yet somehow he knew that Hikari was much worse off, at least for the moment. He had to be strong for her, that was the entire reason he was in so much of a hurry. Her eyes are distant and show that she was still in shock despite her best efforts at a believable performance that she is okay. Her hands are shaky and she's having trouble standing, so Hibiki picks her up, carries her over her to Kiwi, and sits her on top of his back.

Hikari was obviously weak and thus low on power, not to mention how much of her remaining energy she must've used to summon Kiwi. "Jess, you need to rest-" Hibiki is cut off by Hikari"s sharp and quick response. "No! I'm fine!"

"Jess, please. Just take my advice, you could barely stand." Hibiki insists.

"DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME THE FIRST TIME?! I SAID I'M FINE!" Hikari yells instinctively in frustration.

Hibiki clenches his fist and stares solemnly at the ground.

Hikari looks at her boyfriend and suddenly realizes what she had just done. "I'm sorry... But really, I'm okay."

Hibiki places a hand on her shoulder and continues to keep his eyes set on the ground. "I'm sorry too..." Hibiki says quietly before swiftly raising his clenched fist and punching her in the stomach, just hard enough to knock Hikari out. "... Now rest."

After that Hibiki lays his partner as steady he can on the back of Kiwi, while still trying to make sure she's comfortable. Then jumps on the back of the giant white wolf who watches over Hikari.

Hibiki pats Kiwi on the head and rubs the scruff on his neck. "Hey buddy." He says quietly to his temporary steed.

"Okay, now I need you to do something important for me." Hibiki tells Kiwi, holding onto his loose fur for support. Kiwi then barks and gets in running position to show he is ready to do whatever orders he is given. "I need you to run. As fast as you can. And then I want you to pick it up even more. All the way to Jamin, wherever he is. I may have knocked Jessica out so she can rest and not have to stress, but she still needs serious medical help." He informs Kiwi.

Kiwi howls and immediately starts running as soon as Hibiki finishes his instructions. After only a second or two its a steady full blown sprint of 80 mph.

* * *

Jamin drops a tool on a metal table, and looks up at the stairway he just walked down. Mesta is pacing in front of him, ignoring his curiosity, mumbling about how her life's work is going to waste because of random kids destroying everything. He turns his attention back to her and grimaces, wondering if Kalu knew about her, and why he allowed her to do this research. She was only human, and without abilities as far as he could tell.

Ugh, Kalu. He's going to kill me for what happened to Solomon. Hopefully they found him so he can merge back. Jamin thinks, turning his attention away from her and to her bulletin board over the table he dropped the weird wrench looking tool. On it were notes and drawings of the metal she had in her possession. Studying the chemical composition of it, that was unlike anything studied before.

Metal appears extremely radioactive, however no side effects are present from exposure to myself.

"Cool, right?" Mesta speaks up to him, crossing her arms, and walking up to see what he's looking at. He rolls his eyes, but let's her continue. "The stuff is everywhere, but usually in huge chunks, and it's stronger than any other metal I've ever seen so I can't cut into it to get more."

"How did you get the sample?" He asks, still not looking at her. "Found it." She lies, stepping back some. He sighs, and finally turns to face her. He glares for a second, but then realised it probably wasn't a good idea to antagonize her to tell him the truth, and just smiles.

"Do you have a bathroom? I'd like to get changed out of this..." she looks at his armor with curiosity, and picks at it, studying the material. Great... "Stop it."

"My apologies," Mesta starts, then points in the direction of a small corridor. "Down the hall, to the right. If those kids come back, I'll let them in."

"Thank you," Jamin rushes away, and locks the door behind him.

As Jamin is taking off his armor realizing that it isn't doing much at the moment his phone goes off. A loud "Goddammit Solo" plays from his phone as he rushes and stumbles to turn down the volume so as to not let Mesta hear it, making more sound in the process.

Mesta turns around and stares down the hallway in confusion. "You okay in there?" she yells with no response. After a few seconds of waiting she yells again "Hey, do what you have to, just don't clog the toilet. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get a good plumber all the way out here."

"Don't worry, everything is alright!" Jamin says opening the door in a hurry, tripping as a result. He flails in an effort to catch himself. He grabs a box sitting on a shelf on his way down, and it hits him in the head as he reaches the ground. There is a loud thud as the wooden box hits Jamin head, and an even louder one as Jamin collides with the ground.

Jamin puts his hand out and pushes on the ground to lift himself up, but feels something in his hand and picks it up instead, being curious. "Huh? What the-"

Jamin is cut off by a ear rupturing scream from Mesta. She then give an even harder hit to Jamin's head than the box ever could've, and snatches the object from Jamin's hand.

"Woah calm the fuck down lady! What's your problem?!... Oh..." Jamin says angrily before looking at what Mesta is holding.

The box he knocked down was full of tampons, and now they were all over the laboratory. "Fucking weirdo!" Mesta insults. "You're helping pick those up, and then forgetting all of that." She then ads bending down to pick up her products.

"Agreed on the forgetting thing." Jamin says awkwardly picking up what he knocked over.

"You guys okay!?" Hibiki asks barging in with a still unconscious Hikari in his arms having heard Mesta's scream. "Hikari needs serious help! She's low on energy, and used up most of what she had left to summon Kiwi so we could get here. He's dispelled now, so her energy should keeps returning faster now, but I'm still worried." He continues while being careful to not drop Hikari while walking down the stairs.

Once he gets down to the level that Jamin and Mesta are at, he clears off the metal table there and lays Hikari on it. He then turns to finally look over at the two and look at them, not paying attention to them before then. "... I'm not even going to ask, we have more important things to worry about. Mesta was it? You're a doctor, right? I need you to check her out."

"I'm not that kind of doctor, kiddo," she says, shaking her head, refusing to help. He proceeds to charge at her, lifting her up by her shirt with one hand, and snarls in her face angrily. A look of fear crosses her face for a second as his eyes glare daggers into hers. "I was _not_ giving you an option," he finally responds, letting her down, and crossing his arms, visibly annoyed.

"Whoa, Jordan!" Jamin buds in, dropping the stupid balls of cotton he'd picked up back on the ground. "Calm down, what happened out there?! And why are you shirtless?" He looks at the ghost, calming down significantly, realising that force wasn't going to help them any, and he lets out some of the tension he'd been holding in to look back at Mesta, this time apologetically, but she was looking at the unconscious Hikari covered in blood, still on the table.

She checks the now bruises on her arms and neck, then the one caused by Hibiki, but made no move to treat them for some reason.

"Her injuries are healing," she tells them before Jordan could say anything to her, resting the back of her hand on her forehead, just to move it away after a few seconds, and look back at Jamin in confusion.

The doctor examines Hibiki's metal arms out of her peripheral, then turns to face Jamin standing next to a large safe with his arm fazed through it pulling out a notebook and starts reading it. "What's going on here!?" She shouts running toward Jamin to get her notebook back.

"Hmm... What's this?" Jamin asks throwing the book at Mesta's face.

She catches the notebook after it bounces off her face and knocking off her glasses "The hell?!" Mesta exclaims, a second before Jamin's entire form disappears, just to have her gently pinned to a wall. She's too afraid to move, and he fades back into sight, right in front of her.

"Whoa, what's happening?" Jordan asks, stepping back away from the rest of them, but he bumps into Hikari's table, stopping him. They watch Jamin pull out his phone and dial Kalu's number, then set it to speaker.

"Jamin you better have a good reason for calling," Kalu's voice yells through the phone although he was probably speaking normally. Jamin puts the phone in Mesta's hand and motions for her to speak. "H-hello?"

There's silence on the other end for about a minute before there's a sudden rustling sound. "Good work you three. Come back home. This mission isn't over yet."

* * *

Jamin and Hibiki sit at the ready on the couch of Kalu's house, looking intently at Kalu who was facing them, while Jessica sleeps and continues to recover in the room upstairs, and Mesta stands perpendicular to Kalu.

"Alright," Kalu starts.

"Okay, first off; Shut the fuck up and sit the hell down!" Hibiki interrupts rising from his seat. "Second off; I know this is probably hard for you, but Imma need you to be a dad for once and level with me here. Why the fuck do I have metal arms?! Why can they change shape?! How did they turn back into arms, but still metal?! Why didn't you tell me about this?! Y'know, like when I found out you were training X-Men?" Hibiki continues in his rant

"Well at least that makes you Wolverine, I guess," Jamin chimes in.

Hibiki angrily slashes his arm at Jamin as it turns into a blade instinctively and against his will again. "You zip it too Nightcrawler!"

Jamin just barely avoids Hibiki's lashing out by turning intangible as the sword approached his neck. Kalu, Jamin, and Mesta stare in awe having just seen Hibiki's powers for the first time. Mesta observes as his arm changes shape at will, taking note of it, and keeping in mind that Hibiki hasn't even had any formal training with his gift.

Hibiki hangs his head in shame at the inability to control his powers and threatening his friend. "... Sorry man..."

Hibiki then turns to face his father again and continue his distressed questions. "And what's this bullshit with Mesta? You obviously don't know her, so why have us bring her to you? Or is that more of your crap that you and Jamin aren't telling us?"

Kalu's eyes widen as he observes his son's powers activate. "Hmm... So not only has your manipulation of the Heovyne come to fruition, but your physical alteration of your own body has come to surface as well. But as I expected you have virtually no control over your abilities, nor can you even revert your arms' transmutation."

Mesta's hair stands on end at the sound of that word; "Heovyne"... Now these people have her attention.

Kalu takes a step forward and changed his line of focus to Jamin, brushing off Hibiki along with everything he had said. "This is still great nonetheless. Jamin I feel the time has come after all this time, and we don't have a moment to spare. I need you to-"

Kalu is shut up by Hibiki yelling furiously and punching him in the face. " **We're the ones talking right now, not him!** "

Hibiki blows his father back 40 feet through the hole in the wall from the attack the other day, causing him to land head first into the pile of rubble on their concrete platform out the back of their house. "Do you not understand what I'm saying?! Do you even realize that if not for Jamin's ability to open portals and travel instantly Jessica and I would likely be dead right now?!"

Kalu stands up, brushes off his clothes and shakes off the hit like nothing, continuing what he was saying to Jamin as if nothing just happend. "I need you to head back to your home and pick up your gear and supplies, then report back here. There are two more remaining members of the team I have told you about for so long, but they will be here when you return. Then I will have your first true mission as a team. Understood Jamin?"

"Yes, is that all?" Jamin responds.

"For now," Kalu answers, peering over at Hibiki. "And I would request that you take Jordan along too."

"If that is what you wish," Jamin says grabbing and dragging Hibiki out the front of the house, and opening to his house.

Jamin closes the door behind them and motions for Hibiki to walk through the portal. Hibiki complies and steps through, followed by Jamin, and they walk through the yard to the front door.

Jamin opens the door and walks into his home, heading towards the basement. "Don't move, and try not to wreck anything. You already fucked up my bathroom," Jamin yells to Jordan, turning on the lights and walking down the rickety stairs to his basement.

"It wouldn't have been a problem if you fixed your sink!" Hibiki yells back down the stairwell as Jamin rustles through his belongings.

Jamin walks up the stairs carrying his equipment, along with Hikari and Solomon's training armor, and a bag of stress balls tied to his belt loop. "Fix the Sink?..."

"Uhh, yeah, that's what I said," Hibiki says facetiously.

"But we don't have a sink in the bathroom, the only one is the kitchen sink," Jamin says confused

The two stare at each other dazed and slightly worried.

"Ugh, Jamin. Was that some good sex or what? How long was I out after that anyways?" Eboni says strutting out of the master bedroom. "Oh hey Hordan."

"E-Eboni!" Jamin yells embarrassed at his girlfriend.

"Wut?" Eboni asks blankly, having no shame.

"WHY?!" Jamin yells, getting even more flustered. "We were gone for three whole days, and you're just now waking up?!"

"WHELP! Alright, that's far more than what I wanted to hear, and I refuse to let this prosper." Hibiki says dragging Jamin out the door towards the portal back to Kalu's.

"I'm down for that. Eboni, c'mon, you're coming with us too," Jamin says leaving his home once again.

"Wait, really?" Hibiki and Eboni ask in unison. "Where are we going?" Eboni asks further following the two.

"We need to head to Kalu's-" Jamin is cut off by his girlfriend.

"Ayy, this bitch!" Eboni says getting pumped.

 _Ugh, this is just an off week for me._ Jamin thinks to himself.

"Oh, cool, your powers came in," Eboni says looking at Hibiki's arms.

 _I hope._

"Did everyone know that this shit would happen besides me?!" Hibiki asks angrily.

Jamin sighs "I mean Solo and Hikari didn't know," Jamin says.

 _Things aren't going to get any easier for me any time soon, are they?_

"Only those two?!" Hibiki continues.

... _Nope... Definitely not..._ Jamin finishes off his internal thought disheartedly.

The three walk through the portal and walk into Kalu's home as Jamin closes his portal and drops the stuff on the floor.

Kalu sits in his favorite recliner that Solomon nearly broke previously. Mesta stands on his right, from the looks of it she was doing her usual of taking notes, but her head jolts up and she stops as the door opens. She puts her pen and her noted away in the pocket of her lab coat and look at the three walking in.

Another person stands to the left of Kalu. He motions his head to say hello. "Good to see you two guys again. But I don't think I've gotten to meet your lady friend there," He says with his German accent. "Nice to meet you, name's Can."

"Kalu, why is there a terrorist and a Nazi in your living room?" Eboni asks tilting her head.

"Eboni no!" Jamin says, while he and Hibiki die of laughter. Mesta simply scoffs, and Can chuckles giving off an amazed expression. Kalu remains void of emotions or a reaction.

"What you mean?" She asks genuinely confused, causing the three of them to laugh more. She looks between them all, over and over again trying to understand what was funny but not able to.

"Listen up fuckers!" Kalu starts. "First of all, you two need to properly introduce yourselves. And I'll know if you're hiding what needs to be said, so don't try anything." He pushes Can and Mesta forward, urging them to speak.

Can takes the initiative and starts to talk about himself. "As you all know, my name is Can," He then whistles loudly. A large owl like bird soars through the crater in the home and lands aside Can. "But not all of you have met my companion here, Owlschwitz. But unlike most of your gang, I go about things a little less gung-ho. See, my abilities are centered around my mind. Specifically reading thoughts, controlling weak minded people. Also, if you can count it as a power, I possess a extraordinarily large encyclopedic knowledge of most things, which is where my offensive capabilities lie."

"Influence over ones mind, that explains your little parlor trick with the guards back in Egypt earlier," Jamin thinks out loud.

"I see, you didn't need super smarts to figure that out," Can boasts. "Now, as I was saying. My glorious mind holds many secrets and facts, but my most acclaimed feature is my capability to use and master pretty much anything I can get my hands on as a weapon. So I double as both an amazing tactician and strategist, and as a master of arms and a fighter. Brains and brawn if you will. And it's even further advanced by this little guy," Can turns around to show a metal plate through the tears of his top. "This is an implant made of a metal you all should be familiar with; Heovyne. This thing is connected directly to my spinal cord, and thus to my brain. Allowing me to create any weapon I can think up, as long as I have some sort of info on it in my knowledge. Kinda like your little power you got there buddy, except nowhere near as great," Can says turning back around and pointing at Hibiki.

Hibiki gets aggravated at and disregards what Can says about his power being great. "So you can fight with anything, huh? Prove it."

"I would say that I thought you would never ask, but that obviously isn't the case. But I would still be delighted to demonstrate," Can says walking to the table and pulling out a straw from an empty drink.

He fiddles with the plastic straw in his fingers for a few seconds before looking Hibiki in the eye and lifting up the straw. "I can now come up with a hundred ways to kill you with this."

"No way," Hibiki says rolling his eyes and doubting the telepath's claims.

In the blink of an eye Can flicks the straw with blinding precision, just barely flying past Hibiki's ear, and getting halfway stuck in the drywall and the support beam behind it. "Now I expect that should suffice. But don't be mistaken, just because I have these chiseled features and this Spartan like physique, that doesn't mean I am all about getting up and personal, as I said before for those who weren't paying attention. If need be, I will get in the fray, but we prefer to stick to the shadows and do things a bit more discretely," Can finishes patting his avian friends head.

"Pft, 'Sticking to the shadows and being discrete', that's what you call it? Like when you stole MY only research material, and then proceeded to loose it?! And how about when we were all gathered as one of their friends were stabbed, before splitting into two damn beings, and how you were the only one who decided to casually slip away!? Not to mention just how utterly bogus that previous sentence was," Mesta yells at Can, getting increasingly more furious with each word from her mouth.

Can looks at Mesta through his peripheral view, and then peers toward the ground, making sure to avoid direct eye contact. "I... I truly am sorry for your metal, and though it means nothing to you, I did have a reason to my actions... And I apologize for fleeing the scene when that Solomon guy was killed. And I am sorry for the situation that you friends of him are in... But I have been in the presence of murders more than I would like to admit, and I was scared. I didn't want to risk more lives, thinking it was my fault for being there."

"Whatever, I'm obviously much smarter than you, because I can see right through your pitiful excuses. And I don't need some weird mind powers to do that, or to try and manipulate girls into liking you and wanting to sleep with me, like you tried with me when you first introduced yourself. And it's even more apparent that I was far too intelligent there as well," Mesta scolds Can.

Owlschwitz tilts his head and pecks at Can's hand lightly to get his attention.

"What? No!" Can says disagreeing with whatever his friend had said to him.

Owlschwitz coos loudly at Can in frustration. "There's no point in doing that though, I already went through all that trouble before!" Can argues.

The bird flies up to get up in Can's face and coos again louder. "I mean, I didn't know this shit would happen! I see people's thoughts, not the future!" Can yells putting his face in Owlschwitz's.

The giant owl lands and looks away, and does what seems to be the bird eequivalent of a harumph. "Okay, Fuck you too!" Can says turning away from his ally and crossing his arms. Kalu coughs to get his attention, making Can look back blankly for a second, then look to Mesta.

"Don't pretend like you know my reasoning for everything, my dear Mesta. Assuming makes an ass out of you and Ming," he sticks his tongue out, then turns serious again. "That's all you need to know about me."

Mesta crosses her arms, and frowns in frustration, but doesn't say anything more to him, turning to Kalu. "Before I introduce myself, I would like to know how you know me, and what you want. You already happen to know extremely classified information about the metal I am studying, and I'd rather not give any more."

"It's a long story," Jamin answers instead of Kalu, earning him a glare in disapproval. He shrinks back in the couch, not saying a word. Hibiki stares at them in shock, never seeing that reaction from Jamin before from anything. Kalu sighs, and glances back to Mesta.

"It _is_ a long story," he starts in a defeated tone. "The truth is, we've been monitoring your research for quite some time now, Miss, and we believe your knowledge could be of use to our cause."

"Whoa whoa, hold on. How have you been monitoring me? What caus-" Mesta is cut off by Can's hand covering her mouth. He gestures for him to continue, keeping her mouth covered.

"As I was saying... I'm sorry for practically forcing you to come along with us. We would have rather had no interaction with normal humans at all. And I unfortunately cannot unveil anything else until you are properly introduced."

Can takes his que, and removes his hand from Mesta's mouth. "Fine, but I expect real answers after this," Mesta says to Kalu, turning to face Eboni, Jamin, and Hibiki. "My name is Mesta, I am an astronomer, geologist, physicist and astrophysicist, in addition to biophysicists and biologist. My recent research has lead me to the foreign metal of Heovyne. What I have discovered so far in my investigations is this; firstly, the material is obviously extraterrestrial. Second, Heovyne emits a wavelength similar to radioactive materials on Earth. But there is a major distinction that this substance is nothing like gamma waves that almost certainly impairs living beings. So it is very interesting and quite honestly even I couldn't make anything of it. But I WAS on the verge of a breakthrough before everything I was striving for was taken away from someone who stole the only sample I had!" Mesta emphasizes once more glaring toward Can.

"Oh, uh-huh, yeah right. And how do you just know you were gonna hit some big discovery?" Can inquires, desperately trying to defend himself, and failing.

"Because like all good scientists, I have results from tests and experiments that support claims, and that are significant enough to warrant me to look deeper into it on a larger scale," Mesta says in a cocky tone, shooting down Can.

"Oh..." Can pouts.

Mesta begins to explain her process to the others. "You see, to test the affect of the metal on organic beings I had several test groups of rats that had their own living conditions separate from the other groups, and all except for one had exposure to the wavelength being produced. In all of the samples there were no effects on the rats at all,"

"So what's the big deal?" Hibiki asks.

"Because, once the rats began to mate and developing offspring we noticed something. A small amount of the mothers who had access to the radiation, approximately one out of every 10, were considerably weakened and much more drained than the rest of them." Mesta starts. "And once the baby rats were born the mothers went almost immediately back to their natural state of homeostasis, if not slightly stronger, likely from supporting their children which did have obvious changes to them. Newborn rats of the unordinary mothers had no signs of differing characteristics at first, but after a week or so there was undeniable proof, even further shown by other similar tests afterwards. They were often considerably larger, some three times the size, smarter, and needed less to survive somehow. No matter if the parent had direct contact with the Heovyne, or only trace waves, if affected, their child was altered. My next text step after testing numerous animals, all with the same outcomes, was finally primates."

"Well it's fortunate for us that your research was halted where is was." Kalu says once Mesta finishes.

"And why is that?" Mesta asks glaring.

"Because primates have far more mental capabilities than any other test animal you could get your hands on, and I'm sure that wouldn't be good for you either. That is unless you wanted monkeys destroying everything in an immediate vicinity with elements and possibly creating a planet of the apes type uprising from unbelievably intelligent super chimpa-" Kalu says getting Mesta's attention.

" **Are you insinuating that the Heovyne is the source of your strange powers, and knowing my research that's why you brought me here?!** " Mesta asks yelling and cutting Kalu off.

That was a huge mistake.

Kalu closes his eyes and clenches his fist as he starts to loose his temper. "Yes, it is. And you would've learned that if you could've kept your cunt shut for another minute! Now keep quiet until I say so, lest I show you first hand what Heovyne can really do," Kalu says to Mesta barely holding in a yell and glaring. A thin veil of dark purple energy forms and hovers around his fist, floating down and covering the ground in the same purple mist, like a cloud of dry ice.

Everyone is taken a back by the sheer density and amount of power in even just that small amount of energy Kalu released.

"Kalu calm down, I get your just showing off a tiny bit, but it's just a girl getting on your nerves. There's no need to even go that far and scare everyone." Jamin says slightly startled.

" _That's just Dad showing off a super small amount of his power?..._ " Hibiki thinks to himself. " _But that's so strong. I can barely breathe or stand with just this energy in the room, how could anything take a single attack from him? No wonder he shook off my punch like he hardly felt it. In all likelihood, he probably didn't feel it..._ " Hibiki stares at his father in awe.

" _But I'm his son, so I have that in me too... And he does talk about me pretty mightily sometimes... Maybe this is what he meant, it has to be... I just have to train, and I can become even tougher than he could ever be,_ " Hibiki thinks looking down at his still metal arms.

"... Primates have a much more advanced brain then most creatures, so they can actually access the powers that are given to them by the metal, unlike rats. And as you can see, humans are just as affected by it as other life forms, except our mental capabilities are even stronger, allowing us to have conscious control of our powers, and can get better at using them with practice, like anything else," Kalu finishes what he was explaining to Mesta before she cut him off.

Kalu relaxes and opens his eyes once more, releasing his hand from a fist, cutting off the flow of his energy. The cloud of purple energy dissipates once his hand is relaxed, and the room's conditions return to normal.

"Well, that's all interesting, but I held my side of the bargain and introduced myself, so now I expect you to explain how you know all of this, including why you know about me or any of my secret research." Mesta says pretentiously to cover up her intimate curiosity.

Kalu takes a moment to calm himself further and make sure he is fully prepared to let out everything he knows. He closes his eyes tightly to block out everything in his surroundings, including the people around him, the light shining through the windows and hole in the wall, even the calm quiet sounds of nature echoing in.

Kalu becomes lightheaded and falls forward out of his seat, blacking out for a few seconds. Jamin rushes over and helps him stand back up, and rests him back in his chair, leaning it back so he won't fall out of it again if anything happens.

Kalu leans back and breathes deeply, reaching into his shirt and pulling out a dark blue orb necklace.

"Are you alright?" Can asks legitimately worried.

"Wouldn't you able to know if he's okay?" Eboni asks Can regarding his powers.

"I'm fine." Kalu says sternly, fiddling with his necklace and unscrewing it from the peg that connected it to the chain around his neck. He takes the chain off and turns the blue orb upside down. There were two holes on the orb, each on opposite ends. It appears to be made of some gem like material with a dark blue luster, and has a silver looking inlaid design covering it.

Kalu takes the peg that is on his grayish chain, which has a kind of small blade like that on a key, and inserts it into the hole on the bottom of the round necklace, causing it to open. He unfolds the two halves and stares into it intently revealing it to be a locket of some sort. "Damn..." Kalu sighs discouraged. "This would be so much easier if you were here to help," He says to himself in his own little world, disregarding everyone else's existence for a short moment.

There was a collective ring of confusion rippling through the room. Not even Jamin comprehended what was happening, he'd never seen the locket before, nor did he know any more than the others in the house at that point. What was Kalu rambling about now?

Kalu continues to look at the pictures in the locket for a few more seconds, making sure not to let anyone else see. Afterwards he closes the necklace back into an orb and puts it back around his neck. "Heovyne isn't earthly, you're correct. It has never once been on this planet naturally. So tell me Mesta, how did you anticipate it got on Earth during your research?" Kalu inquires covering the locket by putting it under his shirt as it was.

"Oh. Well it was my hypothesis that a long time ago a meteors crashed into the earth which carried Heovyne, seeing as how there was no way it could be made naturally with conditions on Earth to be found," Mesta answers still dazed.

"Wrong," Kalu snaps as soon as she finished her sentence, no doubt being petty and getting back at her.

"Sorry, I know it must be hard having a large portion of your work being shot down and incorrect. But it gets worse, so just keep quiet, don't interrupt, and listen. Alright?" Kalu asks to the people in the room, but focusing on Mesta.

Everyone in the room silently complies with Kalu's terms. Jamin walks over to the kitchen, which seemed to be the only place left virtually untouched from the attack on the house a few days ago, to get Kalu a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from a drawer.

"... I am fully aware that what I am about to say to all of you is extremely hard to believe, but I would hope you will still hear all that I have to say, and not speak of it to anyone else. Except I would obviously encourage you to keep Hikari up to date with everything that is about to be said, and Solomon later once you meet up with him again," As per Kalu's request everyone remains silent.

"Approximately thirty years ago Heovyne was manually brought to Earth and planted here as veins in remote places, such as the poles, in the deep ocean, and directly into volcanoes and other similar places to be melted and directly circulated throughout the core and distributed across the planet. It was put here so that way children born from people who had exposure to the metal would have powers. Just like Can, Solomon, and Hikari who all are in their early twenties. So obviously it was successful, as their parents would've been taken the radiation from the Heovyne for several years, most importantly during phases of puberty, before giving birth to them at peak maturity. But there is one spot where Mesta's studies were correct, and that is the fact that very few parents carried the capability to have advanced babies and but had no powers themselves, and even less of the children actually had their powers take," Kalu takes a few deep breaths to regain his breath after a long beginning to a monologue, but ends up coughing and hacking heavily for a minute.

Kalu catches his breath and continues. "And yeah, that might be all fine and dandy at first glance. I mean, a small amount of us get to be X-Men and run around acting like superheroes, or villains. Or maybe you can just lay low, cover up your powers and live like normal. Things would be fine if they were like that kind of fantasy world. But obviously things just can't be that great or easy. Like I said before: Heovyne was manually brought to Earth and planted here for a reason. Inserting it had it's greater purpose," Kalu leans forward hanging his head, enveloped in a shadow of gloom.

"Unadulterated enslavement and manipulation of Vyne-Humans, then the wiping of all others unchanged from existence. That is the end game of Heovyne's malevolent existence and insertion into otherwise innocent people's lives."

Mesta takes out her large yellow notepad and a mechanical pencil, flips to her next clean page, and eagerly begins to write about what Kalu was saying. "So who is supposedly doing this? And for what reason? Some dictator or evil government trying to make and take control of a master race by creating a way to form war born children?" She asks full of skepticism.

Kalu takes the notepad from Mesta's hands and rips it in half, paying no mind to the vandalism he caused to Mesta. "As inconceivable as it may seem, yeah, that's the logistics of it."

She stares disheartened and confused. "What in the name of God are you talking about?"

Kalu tosses the notepad to the ground. "Remember, Heovyne isn't natural on Earth, you figured that out early on in your research. But that doesn't mean it can't be found naturally in other solar systems out of our reach."

Mesta steps forward to say something, but Kalu cuts her off before she can even start, further pissing her off.

"All the Heovyne deposited on this planet is a result of a vastly more advanced alien society of conquerors, who plan to take ownership of our planet, and enslave the soldiers they created!" Kalu shouts not letting Mesta even a semblance of a word out.

His voice alone made the house tremor, and after a few silent longing seconds of judgement and processing Mesta attempts to jut in again and rebuttal. "Do you honestly expect me to believe that ludicrous crock of shit you senile coot?!" Mesta says stepping forward getting in Kalu's face.

"I can't believe you honestly had me fooled for a while there!" She scoffs angrily. "Let me tell you, you're some fucking actors. C'mon, bring them out, where are the cameras? Not to mention that you didn't just waste all of our time, you also kidnapped me for God's sake! At least now I can turn in this thief and you crazy old bastard at the same time." She picks up her ruined notepad and slaps Kalu across the face with it then turning to Can, no doubt to chew him out some more.

Before Mesta's face can even be aligned with Can's he haymakers her out of his way, blowing her back into Eboni, leaving them both stuck in the wall with two more dents. Next he telepathically commands Owlschwitz to pick up Kalu and throw him against the only intact wall left. He slams into the wall with a tremendous thud, and is hit with the coffee table in the torso, then finally pinned with the recliner he was sitting in, both of which Can launched at him. Can somersaults onto the chair and stares Kalu. Two metal scorpion like stingers propel out of Can's implant and his eyes turn a dark maroon. "There is some serious shit up with you and I don't trust it. I can't get any read at all into your mind. Not even the smallest little crevice to wriggle way into, and that's just not right... Not at all... Even some of the most complex minds, like girly over there have weak spots to access, but not you," Can said motioning his head towards Meats and Ebony, both of which were being pulled from the wall by Hibiki.

The two stingers pierce Kalu through the shoulders attaching him to the wall. "So because I can't read you for whatever reason, I'm just going to make sure you have no choice but tell me the truth," Can reaches down and pulls his dagger out of it's ankle sheath, then puts it against Kalu's neck. "So you honestly know what has been going on?" Can asks in a livid tone

"Yes," Kalu answers blatantly with his stoic expression.

Can's blade is pushed harder against the neck of Kalu. "And those things... They are really aliens from another planet?"

"Yes."

"And they are the reason I have powers?... That's why they've been after me?" His hand begins to quiver slightly.

"Correct."

"Are they even conscious of how much pain they are causing!? All of the death and destruction?!" Can asks demandingly tilting his head down to cover his face of anguish as a small but forms on Kalu's neck.

"They are... They don't care..." Kalu says full of woe as a drop of blood streaks down his neck, dropping then splattering, blending into the dark red suede of the recliner separating the two.

Can's eyes, fist, and implant all start to emit a cloud of burgundy energy, but instead of sinking like Kalu's his aura floats around him stationary. " **And you knew all of this bullcrap but didn't decide to do jackshit until now?!** " Can lurches his head up and glares with his dark red eyes deep into Kalu's eyes with tears streaming down his face pulling the dagger away from his neck and plunging it into his chest.

Kalu hardly even flinches nor does he make a sound of pain as the silver blade tears through his skin, tearing through his muscle and popping his veins. He just stands there. He doesn't make an effort to move, let alone break free, he doesn't use his powers to fight back or revolt when hit.

"Listen here, Can, you are an extremely intelligent boy but even you could not come anywhere near to comprehending the amount of deaths and sins that I bear on my shoulders," Kalu utters griping the hilt of the blade and pulling out of his body in a swift motion." The actions I have taken in the past years aren't gallant by any means, I detest them in a way myself. But while still full of heartache, the work I have done lately is the only kind that I am glad I've taken the initiative to do. And I'm proud I've put forth the effort to take action, because for once I'm doing anything but sitting idle and waiting," Peers into Can's broken eyes in an almost endearing way. "Can, you're part of that, and you can hate me if you want, I expect you to, but don't let more people die. My son and friends need you."

" **DON'T SPEAK TO ME THAT WAY LIKE YOU KNOW ME!** " Can bellows pushing his Heovyne stingers deeper into Kalu and stealing his knife back to lunge it into his neck.

"Alright, I'm tired of this shit," Jamin yells coming down the hallway and grabbing hold of Can's entire hand with a ball of spectral energy.

"You get your hands off of him!" Jamin yells jerking his hand back, flinging Can towards himself. Jamin catches Can midair by the neck and chokeslams him into the floor lifting up the ends of the wooden planks.

After that Jamin swerves in Mesta's direction getting her unstuck from the wall, lifting her up, and placing her down so she is standing up straight using the same energy. "You shut your ass up, keep your bossy snarky comments in your head, and I suggest keeping your annoyingness to a minimum, otherwise you might just make me be the fourth person to put a hole in someone's body!"

Jamin kicks Can up from his crater in the ground and elbows his towards one of the wholes in the wall where Owlschwitz catches him. Jamin floats over the depression and takes a step forward with a searing look of malice "You learn to takes these off so you can actually control your damn power and not put anyone any further in harm's way than you already have, since your dad keeps insisting that I take you along to help even though you are nothing more than dead weight that attracts predators right now!"' He throws a handful of strong magnets at Hibiki, four small ones and two larger ones that instantly attach to his metal arms.

"And you, even I'm getting tired of your crap, and I'm not just gonna sit shit out when you tell me to because you think you've got everything planned and figured out." Jamin says in a grim tone walking toward Kalu. He grabs the furniture away from the wall and vaults it up through the wall to land next to the house.

"Maybe this will help you think right," He steps away reaches into his coat pocket and passes a pack of cigarettes and a black lighter to Kalu. "I'm taking over here."

"Okay, so like, does nobody care about the house anymore?" Eboni asks looking around the battered home.

Jamin sighs at his girlfriend's attempt to lighten the mood and closes his eyes. "That doesn't matter right now. Just... I don't know, can you please do me a favor and check on Can and make sure I didn't rough him up too much. I just meant to scold the guy, not beat the snot outta him. Probably hard on the guy."

"What about Kalu?" Eboni asks looking at the two wounds on his shoulders as she walks to the other side of the room.

"Don't worry about him, he's fine. Probably been through far worse." He says reassuringly patting Eboni on the head as she walks past.

Hibiki takes in the state his father is in, then stares at Jamin and the disarray he put Can into with just a few blows. " _So this is what Can has to offer. And Jamin totally wiped the floor with him,_ " He picks at one of the magnets on his arms, a small one. He manages to pull it of needing to use a lot more force than he anticipated, and tries to toss it away. The magnet stays stationary in his hand, unable to be thrown away. Jamin's words sting in his mind knowing that he can't even take off some magnets, much less turn off the Heovyne on his arms like he supposedly can. " _This is gonna be harder than I thought,_ " He gulps getting slightly discouraged " _Anime made this kind of stuff look way easier._ "

Kalu takes the opportunity for a smoke break and leans against a wall, then hits his box of cigarettes against the palm of his hand to pack it.

"Honestly, all of what Kalu said was right, everything he said about the metal to the aliens is completely real so you all need to start taking this more seriously. I know and I can confirm it because I told him everything to begin with. A long time ago I went looking for someone to help me, and I eventually ran into him," Jamin says bluntly and in his usual calm fashion he says everything in.

Kalu's eyes shoot open as he opens his cigarettes and flips one upside down wanting to intervene, but instead bites the bullet putting a smoke in his mouth and lighting it.

"Heh, finally learning to stand aside and let someone else talk?" Jamin remarks regarding the people in the room, particularly Kalu and Mesta. "I'll take it this is your go ahead, so I guess I'll just let it all out" He says nodding his head toward Kalu, eyes still closed.

"Just so the last of the fog is cleared without anymore interruptions, I'll answer all of your questions right now, hopefully a lot quicker than the old man explains stuff," Jamin says. "Hey Eboni, how's Can back there?" He asks before starting.

A spotlight shines out of nowhere from the heavens focussing on solely of Eboni's quivering self over Can's body. "It's real bad..." A single glistening tear apparates at the corner of her quaking eyes and gleams across her soft cheek then falls, trekking down the smooth plain of her chin, and finally meeting it's end. The tear whom left a lustrous trail of liquid depression leaps off her face onto the cold solid ground that shall serve as it's grave. "...Sadly he's still German," She says in agonising sorrow choking to contain her anguish and refrain from breaking down.

"God fucking dammit, I'm fine," Can groans sitting up patting Owlschwitz's head and rolling his eyes.

"Alright, so the reason I know about all of this and why I needed help is because I'm not human," Jamin lofts his head and opens his eyes. A weird film like second eyelid streaks across both of his eyes to revel green sclera and teal irises.

Jamin's entire demeanor changes to fit the mood, his body tightens, his voice is more forcefully, and his eyes are more intent. Though that may just be the change to the color that everyone is trying to adjust to. "They're called Xelani, at least the pure ones are, and they've done this countless times before. What the Xelani do is they have a planet chosen by their monarchy, and they place the Heovyne to take effect on it's people, then once they have enough citizens with powers they invade. Those affected are taken and have implants made of the metal put into them, this allows them to be mindlessly controlled. Those unchanged are killed without a second thought. Once the inhabitants have been sorted out, the Xelani take ownership of the planet, usually to build either giant military bases or built upon their ever expanding empire. And this is what they plan to do here like they did with my planet, Svig, and the rest of my race, the Svigans."

A familiar silence permeates the room. "I'm giving you the chance to talk now," Jamin says raising an eyebrow.

Hibiki stops with the magnets on his arms for a moment and steps up. "How are you here then? Seems shady that just a single of your kind got away somehow, and has been possibly pulling the strings behind the screen this entire time. How are we supposed to trust you?" He calls Jamin out. That earns him a glare, and Jamin rolls his eyes instead of snapping back.

"I'm not the only one who got away, just the only of my kind, and you've known me your whole life, kid. If I were here to cause trouble, I would have killed you and taken the wolves back to a base already," he answers, glancing at Eboni, still observing Can for issues, for a second, then back to Hibiki.

"The wolves?" Can interject, trying to get Eboni to leave him alone as he speaks. "You mean crazy girl and fire boy? They're like us, aren't they? Why the weird name? And where are the others that supposedly escaped with you?"

"Hey, this was _my_ interrogation!" Hibiki yells at Can, but is ultimately ignored again.

"The 'wolves' thing is a long story. Yes, they're both like you in the fact that they inherited their abilities from their parents being exposed to the metal, and yes they're both human..." Jamin states. "Also, I can't tell who all have gotten away from the Xelani, because I only know of a few. For all I know, the rest could've all been caught again eventually or killed."

Kalu finished his last puff of his cigarette and puts it out under his foot walking forward. "I was friends with Hikari and Solomon's parents. Once Jamin found me and told me everything we came up with a plan." He puts a hand on Jamin's shoulder.

"When I was first controlled with the implant my powers gave me a small window of time where I wasn't completely gone, but I was still given the plans for their next take over, as I was planned to be a soldier. Then I ditched the implant while I had the chance, freed as many people as I could, got us out, and you know the rest," Jamin expands.

"So with what we knew of the strategy for Earth, we thought the only choice we had was to try and find Vyne-Humans and train them to beat the Xelani before they could overrun us too." Kalu removes his hands from Jamin's shoulder, and sits his chair up again to sit down. He groans as he sits and leans back once more. "Hikari and Solomon had uniquely developed their powers early and were born with them. Their parents couldn't handle it, so I let them in on the plan and offered to take them. They agreed and Solo was sent to live with Jamin, and Hikari with special foster parents. I would've taken her, but I already had to raise Jordan on my own. We altered the plan and instead of individually training them, they would both be brought to train with me together," He wipes sweat beads forming on his head from the weighing stress. "Jordan was originally supposed to be the same and train along side them, but his powers laid dormant much longer than we anticipated or wanted. To keep him safe Jamin and I attempted to keep it all secret until he came to fruition."

"Yeah, that got messed up pretty easily," Jamin shrugs.

"Nah, you two fucked that shit up real bad!" Eboni starts laughing hysterically at their previous failure.

"Hey, it wasn't the worst thing ever!" Jamin tries to defend himself.

"The boy tried to stop an armed robbery to see if he had powers too, how much worse could it get?" Eboni continues motioning to Hibiki.

Hibiki returns to his magnets and hangs his head. "I was eight, gimme a break," he pouts.

Can sniggers. Once he gets a hold of himself and catches his breath he comments on the plan. "So that explains why you found me, you want me to help fight back. But what about Doc?"

"We really didn't have a purpose for her, we just couldn't have the word about Heovyne getting out and becoming public. But we thought that maybe she could be of use if we let her in and made you guys take her with you." Kalu answers.

"Wait, you honestly thought that a handful of weirdos with abilities could take out an entire giant alien military full of superpowered soldiers? There's no way this could ever work, even if you had the entire planet on your side." Mesta critiques.

"We are more than weirdos with powers, we're Humans. And that's our advantage here," Kalu says in his attempt to inspire.

"That's probably our biggest weakness, do you even know what you're talking about?" Mesta stresses.

"Human beings are strong because we have the ability to change ourselves." Kalu looks Mesta deep in her eyes. "I know exactly what I'm talking about. I've seen it with my own son, and with Solomon and Hikari. Both of them have abilities that you couldn't begin to imagine along with a spirit that literally froze a state and burned down your place of work. From what I've seen, Can over here has a lot of strength hidden behind what he's shown. If your studies are anything to go off, it's safe to assume that the rest of the Vyne of this planet have the same if not better sense of self perseverance and will power than he does; even if they don't, I'm not going to let us fail."

Mesta steps back in shock. "... So what's the plan now?"

"There we go," Kalu smirks. "I'm glad you asked. Jamin, would you like to do the honors of telling them their first official mission as a team?"

"Don't see why not," He responds. "Our target is in Africa again, but we aren't heading back to Egypt, though we do need to pass through. Not even like we could with the number you did last time, so be careful. They're going to be sending in a 'small' battalion made of three platoons. Their objective is to take over Ethiopia and set up a base of operations there, that they will spring from to start a small scale take over of the horn of Africa. Our job is to intercept them and pick them off before they can get to mainland. If we fail they will slowly gain control of the entire continent and it's resources that they have the ability to go unnoticed."

"I don't even need to try and read him to know I don't like how he said small" Can comments finally standing up and pointing at the guy who had knocked him out a few minutes prior.

"Well you need to remember that their forces are enormous," Jamin says.

"So what are we talking about with their numbers?" Mesta inquires.

"A thousand soldiers per company, each headed by an extremely powerful and talented captain. Those guys are second only to the best of the best the Xelani forces have to offer." Jamin explains.

"Do you think the guy who went after Solo, Jess, and I was one of those captains?!" Hibiki asks getting worked up.

"Most likely, I doubt they would send out a top warrior, nor a inexperienced soldier to try and fetch an important Vyne." Kalu answers. "But what does perplex me though, is that they 'killed' Solomon when they normally try to take them in."

"My best guess is that they somehow knew he held the ability to dissect when killed when nobody else did, and wanted to test it out." Jamin says.

"We really don't know though, because in retrospect that doesn't make any sense," Kalu comments.

"Okay well, why do we have to pass through Egypt when we could save time by having Jamin open a portal in Ethiopia?" Hibiki continues to question.

"Because I'm low on energy as is, and I need to recharge so I can fight during the attack. I've already used my wormholes to connect long distances too much in the past week, but it's easy to ride on the stream I already created to Egypt while its still fresh." Jamin clarifies.

"What are we waiting for? We need to go now then!" Mesta orders.

"Calm your tits, I've planned everything and calculated it so you'll have the perfect about of time for when you leave." Kalu tells the forceful doctor. "I can't send you all out there to fight all disheveled and unprepared like this, now can I?"

"Ooo, presents?!" Can asks eagerly.

"Uh... Yeah, sure... 'Presents'," Kalu confirms slightly confused by Can's childishness. "Eboni please go get the gifts," He says with a weird look at Can as Eboni leaves the room.

"YAY, gifts!" Can yells high-fiving his owl buddy.

Owlschwitz looks at Kalu and tilts his head hopping towards him. Kalu holds out his arm and the large bird perches on it eagerly then pecks at the man's hair lightly and cheerfully.

Kalu chuckles and pats the avian friend on the head. "Haha, yes, it's very nice to see you, Apus," He says in a jolly voice smiling brightly.

The bird sits on Kalu's arms and preens before jumping into his shoulder and looking down at him.

Kalu rubs the owl's tail then looks at his son across the room. "I suppose you're right, it is about time I give him a spirit and see who chooses to be his companion."

Can's jaw drops as he snatches his best friend off of Kalu. "MINE!" He yells. "How can you even talk to him, nobody except I can," the telepath pouts.

"I'm old and I've learned a lot of things during my time. Spirits like your friend there are nothing new to me. I've even helped forge contracts between them and people on multiple occasions."

Hibiki intervenes "What are you talking about with spirits and contracts? You mean like with Kiwi and Jess?"

"Yes, I do. There are 88 different spirits, one for each constellation. Sometimes when people go on journeys they call upon spirits for protection and companionship, like with the bonds I helped form between Hikari and Canis Major, along with Jamin and Solomon with their respective allies," He begins to tell his son. "Other times when a person is struggling on a journey a spirit will attach to them and volunteer to follow them, such with Can and Apus."

"And a giant magic owl talked to you and convinced you to give me one so I can get stronger on my own journey?!" Hibiki asks excitedly. His brain kicks back in after a moment and snaps him back to reality. "Holy shit, I am just living a fucking anime now, alright," he tries to convince himself nothing is strange.

"There is only one thing in that entire sentence that is accurate, and I don't know how to feel about it being the part where a bird speaks to me."

"What do you mean only one thing was accurate," A slightly disheartened Hibiki asks.

"Okay, hate to break it I you but: 1, I'm not GIVING you anything, they aren't pets. 2, neither of us get to decide what you get stuck with, so there's another point in why I'm not giving you anything. 3, That is not at all why I'm helping you form a contract, I'm doing it so you're less likely to die out there because you can't do anything. 4, But yes, I will help you make a contract, but not here, and not now. We must do it so it's just us two, so we should start soon after you all get comfortable with the gear Eboni's bringing you all. And lastly, 5, this is not an anime, this is real, if you die, you really die, so don't joke. Got all that? "

"Yes sir," He droops his head facing his father.

"Take your shit, I call the box!" Eboni yells coming up the basement stairs. She's carrying a giant cardboard box that's nearly the size of her body, and that looks like it would weigh a ton. The girl drops the box in the middle of the room, urging the rest of them to take their stuff so she can play with the box and leftover bubble wrap.

Can and Owlschwitz huddle around the box. He rips into it unfolding the closing flaps, and ripping the sealing tape he completely ignored in the process. Inside are black plastic bags with a small strip of tape on them. The pieces of masking tape have people's names written on them, one for each person in the group. Can hands everyone their section of the box finally taking out his own.

Can eagerly rips into one of his the bags, inside are clothes. He stands up pulling out a long tail coat and a scarf. He takes off the top he has on slowly, looking at an insignia embroidered on the breast of the jacket. The emblem is the silhouette of a starling on a shield crest. The coat itself is a dark navy blue with a deep regal purple fringe. He slides his arms in the holes as he is enveloped in the dark shadow like fabric, and loops the scarf around his neck, just below the chin. It also is blue like the night sky with a golden edge that hangs at the middle of his back.

The next bag has a new pair of boots, the same as he is wearing. Even the shin guards are the same, but never worn until now. All of the clothes fit him perfectly. It hangs and clings to him in all the right places, allows him to move comfortably, the shoes even have the wing design he branded into his boots himself. Can sinks into a pool of familiar comfortableness wearing his new armor completely forgetting he had another bag left. Owlschwitz picks up the remaining bag and hands it to his partner, and Can takes it wondering what it was. He can feel grabbing it that it is solid, hard, and wrapped, obviously not more clothing.

Can tears open the black plastic and unravels the bubble wrap to reveal a curved metal sheath with straps to go onto his belt. He pulls out his new weapon from it's slumber to unearth a balanced silver bladed kukri with a leather padded ivory handle that melds and fits in his hand.

Next is Hibiki to open up his packages. The first and biggest has inside a tight green sleeveless shirt which he puts on hastily since he'd been shirtless ever since his fight with the black knight. Also inside the bag is a black hardened leather pauldron to go on his left shoulder, along with a matching gorget that protects his neck and collar bone, and finally a chest guard that sits below the gorget and pauldron to shield his left breast. The armor latches all over his torso in a net of strips of the same black leather that buckle together snugly against his body and shape to his muscles.

The next bag to be opened is considerably lighter, only having a metal belt and a light yet thick cloth. The belt is actually a chain that latches in the front with a silver belt buckle. The cloth is a dark forest green and appears already battle worn. Hibiki ties it around his body so that it drapes over his right shoulder and hangs slightly over his arm, while wrapping underneath his left arm and connecting at the right side of his chest. It's big on him, there's so much extra cloth that it flows off his back and ends at his thigh, even fluttering in the breeze like a feathery cape on the stride of the wind. The edges along the cape are torn and ripped, some spots along the side even look like they'd been scorched before.

The final pouch has a pair of shin high boots that fold over at the top, unlike the rest of the leather clothing, these are a light brown instead of black. They replace Hibiki's sneakers promptly. The boots lace up along the front side, and have a zipper on the back to make sure they stay on tight.

Hibiki goes to toss that last bag aside now that it's empty but stops feeling a slight weight in the bottom corner. He reached in to pull out a roll of bandages and a note tag attached, with delicate handwriting he doesn't recognize. ' _You might want to wrap up your arms, just in case,_ ' it says. He feels compelled to do as the note suggests, but notices the magnets he can't remove in the way, so he puts the bandages in his pocket for later when he can.

Lastly Jamin opens his bags to reveal new armor similar to his original. This one has a jumpsuit that is made of a tight yet flexible material that goes on first. Next are a pair of high-tech looking forearm guards and shin guards, of which go over his shoes. This outfit however lacks the clunky coat in favor of a simple durable vest to protect his body. The vest has a sort of collar that goes around the back of his neck and has complicated looking buttons on it.

"Nothing for me?" Mesta asks slightly worried for her safety.

"I thought the old man made it clear you were a last minute addition," Jamin says, still harboring some annoyance with the doctor.

"You'll be fine as long as you're with someone else of the group," Kalu says trying to put her at ease.

"Yeah, except for tin head over there," Can says jokingly.

"Yup, that's a death wish," Eboni chimes in.

"Oh most definitely," Jamin boasts too.

Even Kalu joins in "No, don't do that."

"Whelp, fuck, that's nice guys. Good to know I'm useless here," Hibiki says bummed out.

"Aww, that's not true, you aren't useless at all," Kalu says stepping up and wrapping his arm around his son. Hibiki looks up at his father anticipating what he will say to him about his cheerful news of his importance. "What if one of the guys needs a can-opener?"

"Damn, imma just leave before you guys roast him alive," Eboni says laughing walking up the second floor stairs.

"Where are you going?" Jamin asks yelling up the stairs at his girlfriend.

"I'm gonna wake up Wolfy, fill her in on the mission, and let her get dressed in her shit," She says waving around Hikari's bags and opening the guest room.

Eboni slams the door behind her and yells. "Wakey wakey bitch!" The others can hear loud stomps the sound of the bags being thrown then hitting the ground, followed by the sound of Hikari falling out of bed and colliding with the ground.

Hibiki becomes conceded "Umm..."

"Shaddup, we're good," Kalu says quickly.

"Uhh, alright," Hibiki doesn't even care enough to try and know what's going on anymore.

"Okay, this is a good opportunity," Kalu says to Jamin. "I'm going to take Jordan downstairs to start the contract forming. You keep an eye on stuff up here. After that He'll meet up with you guys up here and you'll be off."

"Sure thing, I'll make sure Eboni doesn't mess up Wolfy to much while we're at it."

Kalu drags Hibiki off down the stairs to the basement that Eboni had just recently climbed up from. Jamin, Can, And Mesta watch as Hibiki starts down the stairs followed by his father who closes the door behind them. They can hear the lock latch tight and their decent down the old rickety steps. After a few steps their feet are too faint to be heard. Eboni's antics upstairs are excessively loud on the other hand.

"Bitch, I told you to wake up, not flail around on the ground!"

The group in the living room try to ignore the loud crashes and screaming coming from Hikari saying that she's awake. The three sit awkwardly in silence avoiding each other's gaze and ignoring their presence.

After a few minutes of relative quietness Owlschwitz waddles over to Jamin and coos. Jamin stares at the bird and shrugs his shoulders confused. Owlschwitz flutters his wings and coos again as he tilts his head.

"Uhh, look man, I can't understand you," Jamin says trying to shoo him away.

Owlschwitz coos angrily and flaps his wings.

"I don't know what you're saying!"

"Don't yell at the baby!" Can shouts picking up his friend and cradling him for protection.

"Eh, y'all are fucking weird." Mesta groans from her corner.

"Don't drag me down with those two," Jamin says pointing behind him to Can hand his partner.

"It's okay buddy, I liked your idea." Can says patting Owlschwitz's head and placing him on his shoulder. "He said since from now on we're going to be working together we should try and get along and do something together to become friendlier."

Mesta and Jamin cringe at Can's hospitality. "Oh really?" They question simultaneously.

"Yeah. Hmm," Can thinks. "Oh, I know, you guys have any board games? We could bond over that!" Can says eagerly.

"First off, fuck you. Second off, fuck your bird. Third, I'm not your friend. And four, yeah, we did before everything was either destroyed or burnt." Jamin lists with a unamused face.

"Even if they did I wouldn't play with you two," Mesta says under her breath.

"Oh..." Can and Owlschwitz hang their heads in sadness.

For the remainder of the time until Eboni returns with Hikari the three of them sit in the ruined living room and mind their own business. After 15 minutes of boredom the upstairs door opens and down come Eboni and Hikari, who has a box with her.

"Yo people," Hikari greets, walking over Jamin's side, looking back over to Can and Mesta, and throwing the box at him quickly. He caught it with the metal attachment and brought it to the front to see. "we've got a good half an hour before they come back up. That'll keep us busy."

Can smiles evilly at the box, then at her, and then shows the others the box of brand new Uno cards she had brought down. Jamin looks alarmed by them.

"Hikari, where did you get those?" he asks cautiously. Her eyes widen, and she looks at him guiltily, then takes a step away from him.

"Uh, oh yea, about that, funny story actually. So one time me and Hibi went to the store, and he took em, and I didn't feel like taking them back, so I hid them in his room so Solo wouldn't snitch cos he's petty, and I heard Can say something about board game so I brought down the next best thing... Y'know what, it's not important, let's just play the game."

He crosses his arms and glares at her, but she looks away to avoid his eyes. The awkward silence between them served as an apology so he looks back over to see Can already shuffling the cards and forcing Mesta to sit across from him. They're quickly followed by Hikari, desperate to not be scolded, and Jamin because he didn't want to scold her anymore now that she's finally awake.

The gang have a surprisingly fun and energetic time pissing each other off and screwing one another over in a children's card game as if it was a battle. Jamin used his wits and strategy to pull out wins, Wolfy had fun just annoying people with skips and draw two cards, Eboni would throw out the shady plays with her seemingly constant stream of wild draw fours. And Can pretty much ruined the point of the game and the bonding exercise by cheating, either by looking in their minds or at their cards. Mesta got the worst part of this by having Can sitting in front of her and looking down her shirt every time she went to draw or place a card. She evened this out by giving him a few slaps, a couple of punches, and a swift kick to his balls.

The wooden stairs at the bottom of the basement begin to creak and groan as Kalu and Hibiki walk up them. Though the steps become more audible as they rise nobody hears it over the sound of their game, so their all taken off guard when the door unlocks and reopens.

Hibiki walks out with a gleam in his amber eyes and confidence in his step. His father however marches up the stairs after him with a grim expression and uneasy body language. He turns around slowly and closes the door and locks it once more once they're both out, and Jamin jumps up from the game to walk over and meet up with Kalu.

"Is everything alright?" He asks concerned about what went on underneath their fun and games.

Kalu turns over to look at Jamin. "Yeah, it's all good. A spirit came forward and decided to take him on, so now he's got a contract."

"Oh, heh that's good. Maybe now he won't be so much dead weight," He tries to lift the mood.

Kalu pulls Jamin closer and whispers to him so as to not let his son hear as he walks over to the others. "I know I'm asking a lot, but keep an eye on him so he doesn't get hurt."

"You sure you're alright man?" Jamin asks confused. "I thought that was already planned."

"Yeah, I know, it was. Just, I don't know man. Fuck, just keep him close, alright? You can't let him get in the fray. Now it's a matter of your guys's safety, as well as his."

"Woah woah woah, slow down. You keep saying everything's alright, but that's not what it sounds like," Jamin says getting nervous.

"Keep it down!" Kalu says looking to see if anyone heard or was looking. Kalu puts his hand on Jamin's shoulder and walks past. "Look, you got this, just keep him by your side and makes sure he doesn't do anything dumb. Not too hard, right? Basically the same plan."

Jamin turns around and looks at Kalu walking into the living room. "Did you really just tell me to make sure that someone in this group doesn't do something stupid?" His face covered in sweat from nerves and confusion.

"Alright it's time. Everyone make sure you got your shit and that you're ready to go, then Jamin will open up the portal again, and I'll see you off," Kalu completely ignores him.

The group finishes suiting up and grabbing the last of what they need. Wolfy grabs a juice box and some fruit snacks while she waits for the others, having already grabbed what she needed before she came downstairs. "Hey Mesta."

Mesta is sitting in front of the fireplace thinking about the adventure she's about to be dragged on and hopes she'll be alright. "Yeah, what do you want?"

"Nothin'," Wolfy sips from her juice box. "But you might want to grab that," She motions to a cabinet next to the place that Mesta is sitting.

Mesta gets up and opens the cabinet to reveal a pistol and holster which she takes.

"Only 15 rounds there, so you'll wanna keep an eye out for that," Wolfy happily munches on a gummy "Just in case, Y'know?"

"Oh my Lord, I am going to die out there, and you all will be the death of me."

Jamin learns from the experience in Egypt and prepares a bag full of clothes, food, bottled water, and a first-aid kit. Meanwhile all that Hibiki thinks to bring along is a hoodie.

Once everyone is ready they gather outside in Kalu's front yard, and he gives the final briefing. "Alright, now's the time, all of you know the plan. You're going to be teleported to Egypt, and you'll make your way from there to Ethiopia. Once inside you'll have a single day to rest before the strike. Head to sleep early so you're rested for the attack, because you guys will be waking up early. The invasion will start at five in the morning, and you should be there by four. Spare no time, take the path of least resistance at all costs. After the Xelani are taken care of, report back to me, I'll let you know about your return then. Best of luck to you all, I know you can do this. I believe in every last one of you. You have the means and the strength to do it. Even if you don't feel confident in your abilities, know that you can trust on everyone else to help you."

Jamin reopens the portal and looks to his group. "This is it guys, step through and wait for me on the other side."

The first to step forward is Hikari. She walks over and hugs Kalu before walking to the portal. "We won't let you down," She turns around and jumps into the portal.

"Okay, let's do this buddy," Can says running and motioning to Owlschwitz as they go though.

Mesta walks through quietly, finally followed by Hibiki who looks his dad in the eyes. "... I'll see you later," Hibiki walks though slowly.

"Good luck," Kalu says to Jamin as he's about to walk though and close the portal.

"Thanks, we might need it," He jumps in and vanishes as the portal closes slowly behind him.

On the other end in Egypt Jamin appears and checks to see if everyone made it through safely. "You guys alright?" Everyone looks at him and nods their heads. "Good, then we're off," He begins to walk off leaving the portal to shut behind them.

The team start walking from where they are in Egypt to their destination in Ethiopia. But as the five people begin their journey they hear a loud thud and the "Oof" of someone hitting the ground as the portal swirls away. They turn around to look at what happened and see a girl in a Mickey mouse onsie getting up off the ground.

"Eboni?!" Jamin shouts rushing over to help his girlfriend up. "Babe, what are you doing here?!"

"I jumped through," She responds standing up and brushing the dirt off her.

"I see that... Why?!"

"I wanted to help you guys, so I hopped through as the portal closed."

"Ugh, I told you not to follow me on this mission," Jamin complains.

"Well it's too late now, might as well embrace my presence and get walkin'," She says jogging over to the rest of the group.

The now six had no choice to but to keep walking with Eboni now joining their ranks. They switch between driving and walking for five days with relative ease until they finally make it to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

Once the team make it into the capital they find huge amounts of traffic and people blocking the roads, so they decide to drop the car and start walking to find a place to rest. Hibiki and Jamin hold onto their girlfriends so that they don't get separated in the crowds of people. Can tries the same thing with Mesta which unsurprisingly isn't successful, though it does get him another one of her smacks to the face.

"What's going on here?" Jamin asks getting annoyed by all the people running into him.

"I read one of the people, apparently there's a parade going on," Can fills the others in. "Everyone's scrambling and trying to force their way through to see someone."

"Ooo, I wanna see!" Hikari says excitedly tugging on Hibiki's arm.

"No, we need to find a hotel or something," Jamin says trying to find and excuse to get out of the swarm of people.

"I mean, might as well," Mesta chimes in. "It is our day to rest. And it would be nice to have some fun before we all die."

"Ugh, fine," Jamin gives in.

"Yay!" Hikari yells pulling her boyfriend into the front.

Eboni does the same to Jamin, and Can and Mesta follows suit in the path they open up. Once everyone in the group gets to the sidewalk that all of the shouting and rushing Ethiopians are struggling to get to they see a young light skinned man with short curly hair being pulled in a carriage. He's probably no older than Hibiki and is extremely fit. The man is wearing a Ethiopian dashiki, and has a small scar on his right temple. He waves to the crowd as he slowly rides by and flashes a bright obnoxious smile.

The Ethiopian man spots the group of six and makes eye contact with them. He stands up in the carriage and flails his hands in the most excited way you could think of to wave hello then shouts. "HEY GUYZZZ!"

The six teammates jaws drop and shout in unison. "SOLO?!"


End file.
